Louis Marcus is one of Ireland's most distinguished and pre-eminent documentary filmmakers, winning many major international awards including two Academy Award nominations.

Born in Cork in 1936, he was educated at University College Cork, and has worked in Dublin since 1958 making over eighty documentary films dealing with the life, legends, history and culture of Ireland.

Louis has a long association with the Cork Film Festival since he first volunteered to work on the festival while a student in UCC. He served on the festival's then Lectures Sub-committee. In 1959 his first documentary The Silent Art, on the Cork sculptor (and designer of the festival's Finbarre statuette), Seamus Murphy. Indeed Marcus says that he made it for screening at the festival.

After that he attended the festival every year, either as a delegate with a film in competition or as a critic covering the festival for the Irish Times or the Irish Press and Sunday Press. In 1973 and 1975 he won the Foreign Critics' Award for Best Irish Film, (Paistí Ag Obair and Conquest of Light respectively) Both of these went on to win Academy Award Nominations. He served on the festival's International Jury for Short Film on two occasions, in 1973 and 1979.

He first started making films for Gael Linn in the 1960s, and has continued to focus on issues of Irish history and culture. He has received some 20 international awards, including festival prizes at Berlin, Moscow, London, Chicago and Oberhausen. His cinema works are distributed by United Artists and Columbia Pictures; his television productions have appeared on RTÉ, Ulster Television and Channel Four, and are distributed by Thames Television International.

He was elected to Aosdána in 1988. In1995, he received the Film Institute of Ireland's annual award. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts & Sciences, an honorary member of the Royal Hibernian Academy, and a former chair of Bórd Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board.

Louis Marcus will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at this year's Cork Film Festival.

PROGRAMME 1
Friday 14th | 2.30pm | Triskel Arts Centre - Total length: 79 mins

The Exotic Housewife
1988 | 27 mins | Hi-Band U-Matic
On Sundays, housewife Toni O'Neill puts on a sex act in a Dublin pub that challenges the male obsession with female anatomy.

Cosc Ar Ghnéas
A Ban On Sex
2005 | 52 mins | Beta
Made to mark this year's 200th anniversary of the death of Brian Merriman, an account of the 1940's banning as indecent and obscene of two Irish classics - The Midnight Court, Frank O'Connor's translation of Brian Merriman's Gaelic sexual satire Cúirt an Mheán Oíche, and The Tailor and Ansty, Eric Cross' earthy portrait of a West Cork couple.

PROGRAMME 2
Saturday 15th | 2.30pm | Triskel Arts Centre - Total length: 87 minutes

Rhapsody Of A River
1965 | 12 mins | 16mm
A lush treatment of the valley of the River Lee, Cork City and Cork harbour to music by Seán î Riada.

Revival - Pearse's Concept Of Ireland
1980 | 75 mins | 16mm
Made for the centenary of Padraig Pearse's birth, with John Kavanagh speaking Pearse's own words, this reveals the detailed vision that lay behind the 1916 Rising, and that has been suppressed - or ignored - since independence.

Fleá Ceoil
1967 | 23 mins | 35mm
A cinéma verité look at the exuberance of music and life at the county Clare Fleadh, shot over a weekend in Kilrush and Quilty in August 1966. The film observes the great variety of people who come to play and listen to the music. Shot with three cameras over two and a half days, the film captures the energy, fun, and spontaneity of this huge social gathering. The music is terrific and watch out for the porter flowing from enamel jugs, salted pigs' feet sold as take away food and the shop that has been transformed into a cafe for the weekend.
Silver Bear, Berlin Film Festival
Diploma of Honour, Moscow Film Festival
Best Journalism Film, La Felguera Cultural Film Festival
Best Folklore Film, Brussels Film Festival

Pobal
1969 | 23 mins | 35mm
Some colourful traditions of Irish life of which not all have sur-vived: among them Moore Street, Dublin, and the shawlies of Cork's Coal Quay; swimming the cattle out to the Aran Islands steamer; Croagh Patrick; hurling.

Capallology
1968 | 18 mins | 35mm
A humorous look at the Irish passion for horses across a wide social spectrum.
Best Sporting Film, Brussels Film Festival.

Páisí Ag Obair
1973 | 10 mins | 35mm
The fact that children at playschool are actually hard at work. London Film Festival Selection Foreign Critics' Award for Best Irish Film, Cork Film Festival Academy Award Nomination

Conquest Of Light
1975 | 12 mins | 35mm
The amazing artistry of the men who made Waterford Crystal by mouth
and by hand.
Gold Camera Award & Chairman's Best of Festival Award, U.S. Industrial Film Festival
Bronze Award, British Sponsored Film Festival
Bronze Award, European Industrial Film Festival
Chris Plaque, Columbus Film Festival, U.S.A.
Foreign Critics' Award for Best Irish Film, Cork Film Festival
Academy Award Nomination